September 17, 2009
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NASA recently leveled with the Obama administration: without a lot more funding, we're not going back to the moon. It's straight to Mars for the United States, and that's not going to be a cheap trip either. With that news in mind, the more than 300 attendees to the 31st biannual International Electric Propulsion Conference will put their heads together on the future of electric propulsion technologies. Electric propulsion, though packing a high specific impulse, is constrained by limits on the amount of electrical power we can feasibly carry into space. Therefore it's weaker than chemical thrusters and often relegated to small duties like reorienting satellites in orbit. But advances in the field could be key to developing the kind of tech that will enable missions deeper into space. Like, for instance, to the Red Planet. No pressure.
September 20-24
The 31st International Electric Propulsion Conference
Ann Arbor, Mich.
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September 17, 2009
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While Washington spends yet another day failing to reform health care, New York is hosting 250 companies that are actively pushing the envelope in the pharmaceutical, medical, and biotech fields. The UBS Global Life Sciences Conference is one of the largest investor conferences in the world devoted to health care, and in its eleventh year it aims to connect investment dollars with innovators, breathing life into medical technologies that otherwise might die waiting for a cash infusion. Live Webcasts are available on UBS's Web site so interested parties can hear some of the 250 speakers talk about how businesses can solve problems and drive innovation in health care. At least someone is making progress on health care this week.
September 21-23
The 11th Annual UBS Global Life Sciences Conference
New York City
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September 16, 2009
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Back when information transport systems were but networks of hard wires moving telephone signals, Building Industry Consulting Service International pulled itself together from a handful of small telcos looking to discuss concerns in the industry. More than three decades (and a few different AT&Ts later), the group has a lot more to talk about. From wireless data standards to optical fiber to green design, industry execs and the manufacturers who make modern communications possible will be connecting to make the various entities moving data around work together more seamlessly. Seamless communication; someone should invite the latest AT&T to that seminar.
September 20-24
BICSI Fall Conference and Exhibition
Las Vegas
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September 16, 2009
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Ben Bernanke says the recession is "very likely over." We remain respectfully skeptical. But to shed a some light on the view from the captain's chair, BusinessWeek editor in chief Steven J. Adler will host a live interview Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit tonight at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Adler and Pandit will parse the latest financial news concerning the government's role in the economy, bailouts, mortgages, and the like. Pandit has some explaining to do, given Citigroup's role in the financial crisis. But Adler might end up in the hot seat as well, as his publication, currently on the auction block, tries to keep its head above water while fighting off the New York Times' allegations that it's about to take some weight off its payrolls. Should make for a heck of a conversation.
September 17
Captains of Industry: Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit Chats With Steven Adler
New York City
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September 15, 2009
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Ahoy, me hearties! While most acceptable guidelines for magazine writing style may condemn opening a paragraph thusly, today all standards for proper English may be set aside, for it's International Talk Like Pirate Day. Created by two friends in Oregon during a match of decidedly un-pirate-like tennis, the "holiday" calls for the punctuating of normal dialogue with such lively additives as "Aaaaarrrr!" or perhaps "pass the grog, ye bilge rats!" But while the observance springs from a romanticization of the golden age of piracy, recent developments in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast have cast the practice in a less favorable light, and the U.S. Navy SEALs recently left little room for doubt concerning their tolerance for the vocation, so just remember: have fun with the holiday, but keep it within reason. After all, dead men tell no tales.
September 19
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Worldwide
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September 15, 2009
10:17 am | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
While no one advocates that we should stop producing food, when the finger-pointing over climate change begins, the ag industry often gets an unfair shake. If agriculture is so disproportionally bad for the planet, shouldn't sustainable agriculture receive a disproportionate amount of the innovation? Bringing together capital sources, business leaders, and tech innovators, Agriculture 2.0 hopes to ignite the next phase of growth in sustainable agriculture. Fixing the flaws in the current food production model may just stave off a crisis that will make the current energy, climate, and economic crises look mild, and incidentally exacerbate them all. Linking farmers and scientists with the cash they need to create a new paradigm is the first step toward doing just that.
September 17
Agriculture 2.0
New York City
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September 15, 2009
08:55 am | 0 recommendations | 2 comments
U.S. computer makers and free speech advocates won a hefty victory over China's ruling party last month when the People's Republic backed down on a mandate that all computers in that country come packaged with a state-approved Web filtering software known as Green Dam. Now, schools in Beijing are quietly winning their own battle against information control, removing the Green Dam filter from school computers.
By rule, schools, Internet cafes and other public terminals are still required to install and use Green Dam, though individual consumers are not legally required to install it. But some schools are removing the software from student terminals, claiming it interferes with teaching software needed for day-to-day learning. So far, defiance of the mandate has prompted no backlash from the state.
The Chinese government announced in June that all PCs sold in China after July 1 would be required to come with the Green Dam filtering software, which was developed and controlled by the state through a private company. Critics claimed it could be used to suppress dissent as well as to spy on Web users, though China claimed it would only be used to block pornographic content. Tech trade groups fought the mandate and China eventually relented, but the Ministry of Industry and Information still required Chinese schools to install the Green Dam software.
In their initial assessments back in June, many independent software experts noted that Green Dam exposed computers to security vulnerabilities and would not run smoothly alongside many Web-enabled programs. Chinese technology administrators also complained that the software could cause other programs to crash. Jinhui Computer System Engineering Co., the software company that developed Green Dam, was also accused of piracy when a California tech firm specializing in parental control software claimed the program copied portions of its proprietary code.
[via Reuters]
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September 14, 2009
05:07 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
"Mobile." If there's a single buzzword that's caught fire right now, "mobile" is napalm hot. Mobile apps, mobile ads, mobile devices, mobile Internet . . . it seems that the future of just about everything involves packing it to go. For those who feel like the mobile madness is moving too fast, it's time to fall in line. MobileBiz Bootcamp, the finale to Toronto's Mobile Innovation Week, is an intensive one-day regimen designed to battle-test businesses looking to join the mobile fray. Over 20 industry vets will discuss protocols for product development, revenue models, and preparing for the international mobile landscape. Because what you don't know about the vast possibilites mobile technologies have for your business could come back to haunt you; and knowing is half the battle.
September 16
MobileBiz Bootcamp
Toronto
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September 10, 2009
11:12 am | 0 recommendations | 6 comments
When it comes to game-changing ideas, is there really wisdom in crowds? Given several efforts at crowdsourcing creative content and product development in recent years, more than a few companies seem to think so. What's less clear is why some crowdsourcing efforts are wildly successful while others fall flat. Vitaminwater raised the question again this week when it released a new "flavor creator" app for Facebook, inviting users to vote for a new flavor and vitamin formula for a new product release, even offering $5,000 to the fan who creates a winning packaging design. The crowd gets a product of its own creation, and Vitaminwater gets a pre-approved-by-the-crowd product for release in March. Everybody wins, right?
Letting history be the judge, the answer is at best a "maybe." Doritos has enjoyed measurable success crowdsourcing Super Bowl ads with its "Crash the Bowl" contest, notching the No. 1 most watched Super Bowl ad on YouTube in 2006. But a nearly identical marketing initiative by Chevrolet asking users to create their own Tahoe ads online turned into a forum for the anti-SUV set to bash the product on Chevy's own Web site. More recently, advertising powerhouse Crispin, Porter + Bogusky learned the hard way that crowdsourcing can go seriously awry, drawing fire from its own creative community after issuing an open call to designers to create a logo for one of its clients, essentially soliciting free design work. So how will Vitaminwater avoid Crispin's crash and burn and turn its crowdsourcing experiment into a success?
The greatest advantage of crowdsourcing is that it costs relatively nothing. While Crispin failed to recognize that crowdsourcing from a professional group--that is, asking people to do something they do for a living for free--would be taken as an insult, it did garner hundreds of submissions for a logo design, gratis (the winning design scored $1,000, a pittance for graphic work). In that sense, Crispin succeeded, but at the expense of its reputation (and that of its client, a major faux pas in for a company hired to build up brands). Companies like Doritos or Vitaminwater, appealing to non-professionals who are nonetheless experts on the topic (ask a child why she like Doritos and you'll likely get a reasoned answer) for creative ideas holds far less potential downside as long as the anti-vitamin lobby doesn't sabotage the project.
But the real difference between Crispin's backfire and Vitaminwater's likely success is what the companies are really getting from the crowd. The biggest thing Vitaminwater has to fear from its initiative is that the crowd won't produce a winning product. When Crispin's logo experiment flopped, it flopped hard. But even if its product fails, Vitaminwater has a catalog of other popular flavors to fall back on, as well as tons of priceless, free market data gleaned from the "flavor creator" app that can be rolled into several future products (keep in mind, downloading the app gives Vitaminwater access to all sorts of data on your page). Couple that with the heightened brand visibility the app will create as its nearly 600,000 fans access the app and invite their friends to participate, and even a complete bust on the product development side becomes a coup for Vitaminwater's marketing team, as well as for its product development crew.
Call it hedging. Even had Crispin succeeded in crowdsourcing its logo design without the ensuing black eyes, thousands of man-hours of logo design were left in the rubbish bin. A complete failure for Vitaminwater's crowdsourced flavor, while a bummer, is still a huge success for the company. For Vitaminwater's flavor app, crowdsourcing isn't a win-win. It's a can't lose.
[via Wall Street Journal, CNET]
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September 9, 2009
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All great revolutions need great manifestos, and a group of influential German bloggers have delivered one, nailing their 17 theses on the future of journalism in the Internet age up in the most public of forums. Signed by 15 of Germany’s more popular online voices, the Internet Manifesto’s articles mostly take aim at old media doctrine, ranging from generalizations like “the Internet is different” to more specific notions like “Copyright becomes a civic duty on the Internet.”
All in all, the document is less a plan for the future and more a scathing rejection of old media’s obstinate refusals to accept that the Web is indeed a different medium than print, such as Rupert Murdoch’s assertion that the days of free news content on the Internet are over. Declaring “the Internet is a pocket-sized media empire,” the manifesto at its core asserts that the Web has given freedom to the masses like nothing else in history, eliminating the gatekeeping function once held so dearly by “heavy investments” like large media companies.
At the same time, the manifesto declares that journalism on the Web can be profitable; claiming “tradition is not a business model,” the document appeals to media companies to test and develop new models rather than to try to force the old ways on a new medium (take note, Rupert). Most poignantly, the manifesto insists the Internet makes journalism better, eschewing the inalterability of print for a fluidity that better mimics a continually changing world.
While short on specific solutions, the Internet Manifesto’s shots at old media quickly rankled the old guard in Europe. But, perhaps its strongest point was the one not written. After hitting the Web, the manifesto was disseminated around the globe instantly, garnering so many views its servers failed temporarily (you’ve got us there, print). Newspapers in Europe even picked up the story – on their Web sites.
Read the Internet Manifesto here.
[via TechCrunch, The Guardian]
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